Towards an Ami-robot applied to greenhouses

Abstract

This work proposes the use of the concept of Ambient Intelligence to facilitate some tasks to be performed by a mobile Ami-Robot within a greenhouse of tomato plants. Although, the application of this Ami-Robot will be mainly focused on the navigation, inspection and fumigation tasks, we report in this work the navigation task. A particular mobile robot with basic functions has been built for this application. In addition, we have developed a monitor system based on Petri Nets, whose main purpose is to track the navigation tasks being performed by the robot and serve as monitor for the producer through a graphical interface. A set of sensors, guide lines and code bars are installed within the green house to facilitate the navigation of the Robot. This Ambient Intelligence, wherein the robot acts as the recipient of all the information, is being tested within a real greenhouse environment. So far, the design and development of this application promise to be easier than a traditional robot application from a hardware and software point of view. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.